Third Time's the Charm
by Orlissa92
Summary: Submissions for Zutara Week 2013 - my third time participating. I hope you'll enjoy them. Day one: Calor
1. Day One: Calor

**A/N: Welcome once again this year, Zutara Week! It's been a while – nearly six months – since I wrote anything Avatar-related, but I was surprised I quickly I found my way back to these characters – that must mean something, doesn't it?  
But still, I have been lazy, and as I am writing this I have only 2,5 stories written – which is kind of pathetic –, but I am determined to still make the most of this week. Well wish me luck :) In exchange, I wish you good reading :)  
Rating: T  
Word Count: 1183  
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't own Avatar – the Last Airbender]**

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**Day One: Calor**

"Katara," Sokka starts, all serious, or rather mock-serious, standing in the doorway, arms crossed, leaning against the frame. "The Fire Nation is hot."

She almost laughs out loud – at his tone, at the hidden double meaning of his words, although she's sure he hasn't realized the ambiguity. She looks up from the dress she's in the middle of folding.

"I am aware of this fact. I've been there before. With you, if I might add." It's hard not to let the corners of her mouth tilt upwards.

"I know – I'm just trying to refresh your memory." Sokka continues, strolling into the room and taking place on the edge of her bed. "Do you remember how miserable we were? How terribly hot it was, how we couldn't even think straight some days? How we were always sweaty and gross? How our clothes would cling to our skin, how strong the sun would beat down on us… And the humidity!" he goes on, wildly gesturing with his hands.

This time a chuckle does escape her lips – her brother is simply hilarious when he is trying to make a point.

"I think it's the matter of adaptation." She places the folded dress in her trunk, and reaches for the next one. "Remember, for example, when Master Piandao first came here? He couldn't stand the cold, but in a few days he started to get used to it," she shrugs. "And anyway, the people of the Fire Nation have their own ways of cooling down when it gets too hot – fans, bathhouses, these kind of stuff." She looks up at him, her cerulean eyes bright. "And really, the weather is just a minor inconvenience. You put up with it, enjoy everything else, and it's the end of the story."

"But…" Sokka starts, one hand rising, but trailing of mid-sentence. Eyebrow furrowed he closes his mouth and rubs his chin, deep in thought. Katara smirks to herself. "But what about the cuisine? That's also hot," he comes up with his next anti-reason with such enthusiasm, one would think he has just find the solution for a decade – if not century – old problem.

"You have always liked Fire Nation food," she points out in a calm voice, not even looking at him.

"Yes, but that's not the point," he admits and deflects in one sentence. "I like it on occasion – but to eat it every day? Pff, please. I'd go crazy. And it'd would burn through my tongue after some time, I am pretty sure."

Putting yet another folded dress into the trunk, Katara straightens her back and looks at her brother.

"One," she counts the item on her fingers, "not every traditional Fire Nation dish is spicy, and two, I am pretty sure that there is at least one Water Tribe chef in the capital city, alongside with several Earth Kingdom ones." Still smiling, she lets out a sigh. "And you know, if I ever get so desperate," she lowers her voice for the second half of the sentence, leaning a little closer, "I might even cook for myself."

Sokka huffs.

"And what about the stuffy nobles? Who can stand them?" he goes on.

Katara snorts, her gaze once again turned to her dresses.

"I don't want to shatter your illusions, but with the current political situation, wherever we are, we'll get our fair share of 'stuffy nobles' – and I am going further: I am sure that for some people we are the 'stuffy nobles'."

Sokka crosses his arms and leans back against the wall, his eyebrows knitted together. He groans, then opens his mouth a couple of times, but always closes it before he'd say a thing. Katara only smiles to herself and continues packing.

"There isn't even any snow," Sokka says after some time, as a last resort, although Katara can tell from his tone that by even he has troubles taking himself seriously.

"I guessed so, considering the all-year-round hot temperature," she sasses, then placing the last dress into the trunk and closing the lid, she gets up from the floor and sits down next to her brother, taking his hand. "I know that you'd rather have me stay here, wash your dirty socks until both go grey and wrinkly, maybe marry some nice tribesman, if I must, but…" she squeezes his hand, her gaze never moving from his eyes. "I love him, Sokka, and he loves me. I'd go to the end of the world for him."

Sokka lowers his head; he chuckles, and yet it's the most serious Katara has seen him since the end of the war.

"Jerkbender…" he murmurs. "I still have I hard time processing it," he sighs, raising his head and gesturing towards the betrothal necklace in Katara's neck, the golden pendant resting just above her collarbone. Her fingers fly to the jewel seemingly on their own, carefully caressing the smooth surface.

"You are not exactly alone with that – I still can't believe that I'll be a wife within a month!" she exclaims almost breathlessly.

Sokka is out of words; he is just gazing down at his baby sister, trying to match this beautiful, confident, glowing young woman with the gangly, awkward girl she once was, before they started their journey.

"Just tell me one thing," he asks. "Will you be happy there? Living there, with his royal highness, with the Fire Nation's heat and spicy food and stuffy nobles… will you be really happy there?"

A wide smile blossoms on Katara's face. She lets go of his hand, places her left palm on his cheek – it's rough under her skin, the stubble tickling her –, leans in, and peck his other cheek.

"I will. I promise." She is tearing up. She didn't mean to cry, but now tears are welling up in her eyes. "And it's not like I'll be a prisoner there," she assures him, "I'll able to visit. And you can come, too, whenever you'd like to."

"You'd better," he says, then rubs his eyes. "Damn it, something's got into my eye."

A watery laugh escapes from Katara's lips. She leans forward and hugs her brother.

"I love you, my silly big brother," she whispers into his ear. She feels as his arms find their way around her waist, pulling her closer.

"And I you, little sis." Then, as quickly as he sneaked his arms around her, he lets her go – he doesn't want to compromise his manliness with a way too long, way too emotional moment. "Are you done packing?" he asks, looking around the small room, taking in those couple of trunks and bags she is taking with herself to the Fire Nation.

"Yes; everything's packed," she nods.

"Then what do you say about one last snowball fight?" he says, playfully punching her shoulder. "Before we sail off tomorrow to take you to that snow-less hotland?"

Katara chuckles.

"Let's go," she says, nodding towards the door, already standing up, pulling Sokka with her. "I wouldn't pass the chance to kick your ass one more time."

And today, Sokka doesn't even put up a fight.

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**Tumblr: orlissa**


	2. Day Two: Euphoria

**Rating: T  
Word Count: 1248  
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't Avatar – the Last Airbender]**

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**Day Two: Euphoria**

He grabs her by the waist when she should be on her way to meet the chief of staff to discuss the details of some upcoming state dinner, pulls her aside, into the thick bushes decorating the royal gardens, the greenery completely concealing them from curious eyes, and before she could ask _what in La's name he is doing_, he is already kissing her, his warm lips insistent and relentless, efficiently shutting her up.

Not that she is complaining.

As depressing as it is, it's been a while since they have had really time for each other. Between royal duties, council meetings, attending to charity fundraisers, trips to the outer islands and villages in need, and listening to various diplomats' endless speeches, the most time and energy they have had for each other technically since the end of their honeymoon was crawling into bed together and snuggled close to the other.

But is seems like Zuko has gotten enough of it.

"Agni, I missed you," he whispers, his mouth only leaving hers until he utters the words, and then his lips are back on hers, with even more passion, his tongue already caressing the seam of her lips, seeking entrance. But as she is about to whisper back and tell him that feeling is mutual, or at least grant him access and getting the message through this way, Zuko suddenly garbs her waist once more and yanks her to the ground, one hand on her mouth, preventing her to scream or even yelp. She falls on the grass hips first, her legs folded up under her, with Zuko's solid body behind her.

"Hush!" he orders her, his chest pressed against her back; his voice is not aggressive or even scared, more like mischevious. She is about to pry his hand away from her mouth and ask him what is going on, when, under the low hanging leaves of the bush they are hiding behind, she suddenly sees a pair of expensive, but rather pompous, shoes nearing them, then stopping a couple of feet from the bush. The owner of the shoes stands still for a moment, the ankles moving as he turns first to the left, then to the right, then still for a moment once again, jut to rise to tiptoes only a second later, the owner, without doubt, trying to peer over the edge of the bushes.

Surprisingly, from this vantage point, the whole situation is extremely funny.

The next moment the owner of the shoes seemingly finishes whatever he has been doing, and walks away with quick, measured steps.

Zuko lets go of her in an instant. She laughs out loud, that true, free laugh that makes your belly hurt.

"Who was that?" she asks when she can finally breath normally again, laughter still lurking in her voice, turning over to face her husband.

"Advisor Mingzhi," sounds his surprisingly calm and controlled answer. She starts laughing again, maybe even louder than before. "Hey, keep it down, or he'll come back!" He orders, not that there's any point in it.

"Sorry, it's just…" she breaths, her voice forcefully lowered, "You're hiding from your own Advisor!"

"Well, he wanted to talk about the trading agreement with Kyoshi," he says matter-of-factly, like it would explain everything.

Katara chuckles, her head resting on the ground, blades of grass tickling her face.

"I thought that was important stuff."

"It is, but not urgent. And I'd really not dive into it until I discussed it with Suki."

"So you hid from him," she says, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and, raising it up, she tickles his face with it. He grimaces.

"Not exactly," he says, grabbing her wrist and playfully biting into the tanned skin. Katara yelps and drops the blade of grass. "I just decided to cancel our meeting, so I could spend the afternoon with my wife, but I guess nobody told him that."

"So now you are hiding from him," she summarizes, her head rolling forward, finding resting place on his shoulder, as soundless giggles shake her body. Zuko almost looks offended.

"Hey, I'm the Fire Lord – my word is supposed to be law. If I want to take the afternoon off, I will," he tries justifying his actions. His words surprise Katara – ever since taking the throne, he has been nothing but completely responsible, putting his country before everything else. She won't say that it didn't bug her – she understood it, but it still bugged her. But now – now he must really be desperate and tired to say such things. "And he is a terribly…" he trails off, without doubt looking for the right word to use "unpleasant person," he says at last. "And anyways, don't tell me you don't favor spending your time with me to have a meeting with… with whom, exactly?"

Katara's giggles subdue just enough that she can answer.

"Oh, so now I am supposed to skip my duties, too?" she asks, without answering his question. She pulls away a little, while she caresses his chest, her hands subtly slipping beneath his outer robe. Yes, she's being a tab bit flirty. And handsy. Not that she's ashamed of it. Zuko is not the only one who is fed up with not having time for each other. And she is feeling light. Happy. Not serene and majestic as a Fire Lady should.

But she couldn't be less bothered by it.

"That was my plan. If you are up for it." He kisses her again, as if he was trying to convince her with his lips, his hand sliding upwards from her knee, pulling the fabric of her skirt up.

So she is not the only one being handsy.

"I don't know," she teases, unable to wipe the grin off her face. "What's in for me?"

"Peace. Rest. Me," he says, his words punctuated by small, pecking kisses, migrating from her jaw line, down to her neck.

She suddenly moves, pushing herself from the ground, and, swinging her leg and placing her hands on his shoulders, she straddles him, pushing him back. They almost roll into the bush.

"Really?"

He nods.

"Really. You in?"

She makes a show of thinking about it.

"So my very serious and very responsible husband suggests that we ditch all our sacred duties for the afternoon – turn around and don't look back – and just have fun?"

He nods again.

"Basically, yes."

Laughter bubbles from her lips once again.

"What's that?"

"It's just… just…" she stutters, lying flat on top of him. "It's just so absurd – I mean, it's something that teenagers do. Real teenagers, unmarried people, who haven't saved the world, and all they care about not getting caught by their parents because they don't want to be scolded…" she rest her head against his chest, feeling, more than hearing, his heart beat. "We grew up too fast," she sighs. He doesn't say a word, but she knows – the same words are swirling in his head, too.

Silence settles between them as they remain lying on the ground, laughter dead, heart rate slowing down, Zuko's fingers buried in her locks.

"Then I say…" he says at last, "that we deserve it. We deserve to be… simple, average… teenagers for a day. It's the least we deserve. What do you say?"

A brilliant smiles blossoms on Katara's face. She pushes herself up a little so she could look into his eyes.

"I say let's get out of here."

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**Tumblr: orlissa**


	3. Day Three: Voices

**Rating: T  
Word Count: 1572  
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't own Avatar – the Last Airbender]**

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**Day Three: Voices**

Zuko pushes the heavy drapes aside a little and peers out of the window, gazing at the horizon – at how the rising sun, this pale disc obscured by the mist, painting the dark blue night sky soft pink. The door to his chambers is creaked open – he can hear the servants bustling, coming and going out in the hallway, talking, some singing.

His fist clenches around the curtain, the tendons standing out, muscles tense under the skin.

She used to sing, too, her voice echoing in the vast rooms during those days after the Comet, when, for the time being, the palace was hauntingly quiet, when nothing was certain, when he was still bedridden, still healing – then she would sing, stealing a little sliver of life into these old, dark rooms. She would sing old Water Tribe songs, taught by her grandmother, stylish Earth Kingdom tunes she heard in Ba Sing Se, traditional Fire Nation ballads she must have picked up traveling the outer islands, where they were still sung.

She would sing, sit by him, attend his wound and kiss him. She would say she loved him and he would say it back.

But this little, personal heaven only lasted until they were together, until Aang and the others arrived, victorious, with Ozai in chains.

After that she only had smiles and soft words for Aang.

He observed it for days in silence, with a breaking heart, before calling her out on it.

They were standing right here, in front of this very window. He remembers every little detail: how she was resting against the window frame, how the setting sun cast a halo over her head; how her hair was a little tousled, how her eyes were a little red.

"You lied to me," he accused her, his voice cold, hurt.

She shook her head.

"I didn't," she said, her words no more than a powerless whisper. "I do love you." She avoided his eyes. "It's just you are stronger than Aang."

He shook his head. He didn't understand it. He still has problems understanding it today.

But Katara felt it; she knew it. She always did, always has, always will. She has long since known him better than himself.

"By some mysterious way of the spirits, you both love me. If I choose you – and La help me, I so want to choose you –, it would destroy Aang. He won't bear it. It would be wrong. Who knows what would happen. But if I choose him – you are strong, Zuko, so strong," she reached out and placed her hand on his bicep. He remembers how he shuddered under her touch. "You'll live on. You'll get over me, get on with you life." She let go of him.

"This is stupid!" he exclaimed, angry, stubborn, and so, so young. "This is stupid and you know it. Katara, please, listen to me…" He reached for her hands, feeling the silky soft skin under his fingertips. He remembers feeling her pulse racing, her body subtly reacting to him. He was ready to beg – to grovel, to do everything to make her stay.

She pulled her hands from his grip and turned away.

"Please, stop," she pleaded. "Don't make it harder than it already is." She let out a sigh and pushed a wayward lock from her face. Her hand was trembling. "We are leaving tomorrow. I won't be back for a long while. If you must write – address it to Sokka or Aang, not to me. It'll be the best, you'll see." And with that, she walked out of the room, out of his life.

As much as it hurt, he did what she asked. He never wrote to her. When they met – because they met, from time to time; it was inevitable –, he was civil and polite, but kept his distance. Years went by before they had a real conversation again.

He looks down at the garden now, at the servant who is busy putting out the torches that light the pathway during the night. Just there, just over that bend, on the old bench – that's where they sat, years later. That's where talked, really talked again.

She was pregnant – for the second time. Kya, no more than three at the time, was playing with the turtleducks not far from there. Katara's eyes hardly moved from her daughter.

Apart from them the garden was empty; he was free to talk, to tell her everything he wanted, without having to be afraid of being overheard.

And yet, he couldn't find the words.

So she spoke instead of him.

"I regret it sometimes, you know." He didn't say a word, but turned his gaze on her. She didn't look at him, but must have felt his eyes on her, because she continued: "Not choosing you, I mean. When life gets too much – when we just won't stop traveling, when Kya is grumpy and I haven't seen a friend in weeks, when I can't be more… more than the Avatar's wife, who takes care of him – who mends his clothes and cooks his meals – and stands by him, smiling, always smiling, and then at night he slips under the covers, holds me close, whispers that he loves me, and then…" her voice broke. She touched her cheek. "Then I imagine that it's you beside me, not him. It's pathetic and wrong, I know, but I can't help it."

He didn't say a word, just nodded, his mouth dry, his heart clenched.

"I still love you," she breathed, almost ashamed, like it was some dirty, sinful thing.

In some aspect, it was.

"As I love you," he replied, covering her small, but strong, weathered, hand with his own. "But still – you'd do it again, wouldn't you?"

He didn't really need her answer – he knew her, but Katara still nodded.

"But why?"

"Because there are things bigger than us," she replied. "Fate and duty and future."

"And Aang." Aang was bigger than life.

"And Aang," she agreed. "It might not make me the happiest I could be, but my place is still beside him. It's my duty, my fate."

She squeezed his hand.

Unshed tears hurt his eyes.

"I just wish it was me, not him."

Katara hung her head for a moment.

"Maybe it's time you fulfilled your duties, too," she said, looking at her laughing daughter again, free hand on her rounded stomach. Imagining amber-eyed children playing with fire, without doubt. He knows he did.

Zuko turns away from the window and walks over to the bed, where his ceremonial robe is laid out for him, ready to be worn. He picks it up and, with heavy heart, slips his arms into the sleeves.

Even that day, he knew what kind of duty she was talking about. The same duty his advisors had been bothering him about for years. And finally, he has bowed his head to this duty. He placed the needs of the Fire Nation before his own heart.

And today is his wedding day.

In the end it was his council that chose – the girl, his bride, is nice. Young – maybe too young – and pretty. Well educated, moderately clever, too. Not too independent and rarely has own ideas. And, according to the midwives, fertile. Which is, in the eyes of the nobles, is the most important thing right now.

He believes they will get on well, although he has no illusions about love.

He steps in front of the mirror and reaches for the comb.

Today is his wedding day – it's still hard to grasp; it's not exactly how he imagined it years ago, as an idealistic teenager who fell in love with a girl who sang ballads by his bedside –, and Katara is not even in the country.

She wanted to come, she even told him so in her letter – they are past the stage where they don't even correspond; the letter, now wrinkled from having been read so many times, is lying on the dresser, under his crown – but was unable to, as she had just given birth to her third child. A boy, again. An airbender, finally.

_"It's fortunate, really, that I finally gave birth to an airbender,"_ she wrote, _"because I don't think I would be able to carry another child. It was a difficult pregnancy and a difficult delivery, and I am still weak, but Tenzin – that's what Aang named him – is healthy and strong, and that's the only thing that matters." _

He picks up the crown, his fingers brushing against the now soft paper – by now, he knows it by heart. He raises the golden hairpiece to his head, and secures it with a pin.

He is ready.

He walks to the door, but before he exits the room, he looks back one more time – his gaze moves over the bed, the window, the dresser, one more time. He can almost see himself, his younger self, and Katara amongst these walls. He can almost hear her voice, belting out those songs he once grew to love.

And then a step and he is out of the room, closing the door behind himself.

_ "In this life, fate wasn't kind to us. But maybe… maybe in the things will be different. Maybe we will be able to have each other then. I'll be waiting for you. But until then – be strong. I love you."_

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**Tumblr: orlissa**


	4. Day Four: Gravity

**A/N: Okay, no excuses here. The thing is that I was away on holiday around the end of Zutara Week, and then simply didn't have the inspiration to write… But I'll finish all the prompts, I promise :)  
Rating: T  
Word Count: 528  
Disclaimer: [Insert funny text here that tells you I don't own Avatar – The Last Airbender]**

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**Day Four: Gravity**

Iroh is familiar with times like this – when his people are preparing for battle, sharpening swords and hardening hearts, everybody so tense they are ready to snap, because the next few days, the next few hours, what they have until Sozin's Comet arrives, will decide about life and death, and usually he is just as tense as the others around him, if not even more so, because the weight on his shoulders are always mightier, has always been, but now – now he can barely keep the smile off his face.

Because he is almost completely sure that his nephew is in love.

Zuko has always been one to try to please others. It is the way he was raised, how Ozai wanted him to be, for which Iroh can't help but condemn his brother. And, alongside with this urge of his, Zuko has never been very smooth when ladies were concerned – and what he is doing right now around the pretty waterbender girl is rather amusing and bordering adorable. And Iroh absolutely loves watching it, the young boy's struggling brightening his day, even if only a little bit.

First of all, there are the big things, the things Iroh is sure that he is not the only one noticing – like how Zuko seems to always make sure that the girl is within his sight, or at least within earshot. How he jumps whenever Katara so much as seems to be in the need of some help – any kind of help. How he always struggles to speak exceptionally well when he is around her, but usually falls miserably and ends up stuttering. Some of the younger volunteers at camp have picked it up, too, chuckling amongst each other about the Fire prince, who has it so bad, that maybe he should take a _cold shower._

And then there are the small things, the things Iroh thinks only he, who knows Zuko and his tells so well, notices. How, when they sit down for meals, the boy, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, always sits beside Katara. If the girl moves slightly to her left, Zuko will mimic her. If she steals a glance at something, Zuko will do the same. If she leans slightly backwards, Zuko will change the angle of his back, too. Sometimes when the girl sneezes or yawns, Zuko follows suit. Whatever the young waterbender does, his nephew does the same. Iroh couldn't think of anything more adorable, really.

In some way, it kind of reminds Iroh of some of the lessons he had to sit through as a young prince – he recalls one of his tutors and his detailed model of the Universe, complete with miniature planets made of colorful marbles, and clever, copper levers that made them move. If one planet was moved, the others moved according to it, too, just like their real, mighty counterparts.

These two young people are just like the planets, Iroh muses – they are parts of the same universe, where Katara is the Sun, and his nephew is one of the planets orbiting around her, his world centering around her, every one of his senses attuned to her.

He just hopes that thickheaded nephew of his will realize it soon, too, before it will be too late.


End file.
